Anger, fear, jealousy, selfishness, envy, judgement, hate – if it is bad and you can name it, I bet I felt it this week.

My desire to move to a different home swelled into another round of pretty nasty jealousy and selfishness – right around the same time that fear came attacking in the form of building a/c problems and a heat wave while The Hub is spending lots of time at home doing office work… A group of pregnancy announcements from expectant mothers in my life, coupled with the impending 1st birthdays of both my nephew and BFF’s darling daughter had me practically inside-out with envy and frustration – and another tough challenge for myself courtesy of The Love Dare left me seething with selfish thoughts screaming “BUT WHAT DO I GET IN RETURN!?”

And though I am not at all proud of this, I gave into it all. It built and built until I crumbled, temporarily, under that mound of negative junk. I was wallowing around in it, letting each thing build on the others and get bigger and bigger in my heart and mind until suddenly last night, while silently ranting away about it within my own head, a realization hit me like a bucket of cold water in my face:

I had been doing well leading my heart for a while – I had remained in control, prayed through things, found better ways to handle situations and stayed on track.

The thing is, when you pass one test, you move to the next – and buddy, it’s going to be harder. Whether it is The Enemy trying to steal that peace and shake your confidence in the timing of The Lord, or The Lord himself testing you before that next promotion in His plan, it is obvious that it is going to get tougher when you show you can handle what you have right now.

And giving into all of that is NOT acceptable. Lumping all that awful into a giant pile and letting it hang like a storm cloud over me isn’t Ok.

The truth is, each little thing isn’t so bad on its own, and each hurdle is easily cleared when looked at on its own, instead of as an overwhelming group.

Now I am not saying that the things I was dealing with will become nothing when I take each individually – but it is kind of like a puzzle – you find where one piece fits at a time, and each one you fit into the picture makes it that much easier to place the next.

My very wise friend Megan told me this week “God gives us a lamp unto our feet – to see the next step. Not a head lamp to see the future.”

I got overwhelmed this week because I was trying to look out into the future and solve every problem and place every puzzle piece all at once; trying to see the whole path when I should just be looking for that one next step that God has illuminated for me to find.

It was a temporary slip, and it is important when that happens to get back to an attitude of joy and thankfulness as soon as we catch ourselves in that place of pain or anger or jealousy or hate.

Megan pointed me towards The Word in Philippians 6:

” Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. “

God does want us to pray for our desires – he knows them already, it isn’t like we are hiding them from him. And praying about them, and asking for guidance about the reasons behind them really helps me to keep those negative feelings out of my mind and keep “my eyes on the prize” and my heart focused on the joy of the journey he has created for me.

SoP is getting a facelift!

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Spirit of Power · Our journey to embrace Timothy 1:7 – For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline